One of Us: Russell Newton Jr. completed 47 'scary' missions over Europe during World War II

Twenty-year-old Russell Newton Jr. was awakened on the morning of Nov. 6, 1944, by a sergeant who blew a police whistle and shouted “out of the sack and into the flak.”

Thus began his first combat mission as the command pilot of a B-24 Liberator long-range bomber.

“A police whistle!” he wrote in 1989, recounting his war-time experiences. “I had hoped at least for a bugle calling us to glory.”

The target that day was a heavily defended oil refinery near Vienna. To reach it, Newton’s B-24 flew in formation for six hours from the base at Grotalia in southeast Italy. The bombing run lasted 15 minutes.

“Flak was heavy, accurate and lasted a long time,” wrote Newton, chairman emeritus of the Jacksonville investment firm Timucuan Asset Management, who was part of a group of veterans honored last Sunday during the Jacksonville Jaguars game.

Newton, now 89, was an 18-year-old sophomore at the Virginia Military Institute when he joined the Army Air Corps in March 1943. Over the next 18 months, he learned to fly a B-24 and then trained with the 10-man crew that would accompany him to Europe.

Beginning with two sorties that he was required to fly as a co-pilot on another pilot’s B-24, Newton flew 47 combat missions before a flight surgeon grounded him because of hepatitis on April 8, 1945.

“Every one of them was scary,” Newton said.

Probably the most frightening moment occurred during one of three runs he made over the Brenner Pass, which the Germans used to bring supplies by train and truck across the Alps into Italy.

The pass was defended by 88mm cannons located 8,000 feet above sea level that filled the air with flak so thick “some people said you could almost walk on it,” Newton remembered.

On Dec. 29, 1944, Newton was flying in formation on a bombing run over the Brenner Pass when “the plane just in front of me disintegrated in an explosion and I few straight through the debris and smoke,” Newton remembered. “Metal hit us everywhere.”

One engine died immediately. By the time he reached the dirt landing strip at Grotalia, he had only two working engines.

“I was sure I would never see another Christmas,” he wrote in 1989.

During the 31 sorties he flew — many sorties counted as two missions because of their length and danger — Newton’s B-24 returned three times with only two engines, 10 times with only three engines and twice with a flat tire on his main gear, which made it difficult to land the plane without losing control.

“Landing a B-24 with a flat tire on one side tends to turn the crew pale,” he said.

Altogether, Newton spent 232 hours and 45 minutes in the air on combat missions, an average of 7 hours and 48 minutes per sortie. He made it back to Grotalia on all 31 sorties.

“The fact that I made it back to base all 31 times I attribute to a lot of luck and a bit of skill,” he said.

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. P.J. O'Rourke

909 points

Grendel53

Tuesday, November 19, 2013 @ 11:33 pm

A hero in our midst. Thank you for your service, Mr. Newton.
12 hours of joy, 15 minutes of terror.
Watch "Memphis Belle" for a pretty good hollywood version. Can't wait to check out "The Mighty Eighth", 8th AF over Europe in B-17s.